Is there such a thing as too much training?
Athletes have been told repeated over and over by both coaches, parents, and other athletes that the harder you work, the better you will become. Although that is correct, there is a limit to how much training an athlete’s body can withstand, so the question becomes, how much training is too much training? Unfortunately, the answer isn’t as straight forward as “if an athlete is training ‘x’ amount of hours per week, or ‘y’ number to training sessions per day”. The most common way of finding the answer to if you are training too much to make progress athletically is to look for the risk factors of overtraining. According to studies and research, there are many symptoms of Overtraining Syndrome (OTS). Some of these symptoms are:
-Fatigue, Insomnia, Anorexia, Depression, Irritability, Weight loss, Abnormal Change in Heart Rate, Agitation, Lack of mental concentration, Loss of motivation, Sore/Stiff muscles, Hypertension, Anxiety, Restlessness, Poor quality sleep, Reduction of fine motor control-
As you can see, none of the symptoms of OTS are desirable, yet all of these symptoms are fairly broad and vague. Onset can be pretty gradual and not noticed over time, but here is some advice if you feel like this might apply to you:
1. Listen to your body – If you feel like your body is telling you to slow down, do your best to listen to it. For example, this can be by shifting your focus in training from heavy intense training, to training mobility or balance, or simply just resting. This is a good shift because it lets your body recover and get out of the over-trained state, and allow your body to adapt to your training when you do pick the intense training back up again.
2. Check your nutrition – Make sure that you are getting enough water and quality calories (Protein, Complex Carbohydrates, and Healthy Fats) to help your body fuel itself and run efficiently and effectively.
3. Return to training slowly – Don’t jump straight back in head first to the intense training that you were doing previously. Have 2 or more lighter days as a transition after your body feels like it has recovered fully.
Remember that the goal of training is for your body to adapt to the training – so if you are training before your body has recovered fully, you aren’t getting the most out of your workouts!
Thanks for reading and Happy Training!